When a noncustodial parent has refused, month after month, year after year to come forth with child support payments, many parents despair in their belief that nothing more can be done--that they will simply have to continue on struggling to pay for health care costs and college savings. However, this is not necessarily true. An experienced Los Gatos child support attorney may be able to offer you a solution to a problem that you have unfortunately been dealing with for years: collecting back child support

What Is Back Child Support?

Back child support is unpaid child support that has collected over the months or years. According to CNN, over $100 billion is owed in the form of back child support across the country. With interest, it is not uncommon for a single mother to be owed $10,000, $20,000, or much more if the delinquent payments have been going on for years. Common excuses for noncustodial parents to use for lack of payment include:

To get a divorce in California, only one spouse needs to request it. California is a no fault divorce state, meaning one spouse can file for divorce citing irreconcilable differences, and the divorce will be granted. While most states have a no fault divorce option, some states allow parties to cite a reason for the marriage dissolution, such as infidelity or cruelty.

Because California allows for marriages to end without spouses giving a specific reason and based on one spouse’s desires alone, it is possible to divorce someone who you cannot locate. California law recognizes that due to the nature of divorces, a spouse may not know where to find the other spouse. Thus, California has a statutory procedure for serving court papers, when the address of the opposing party is unknown.

If you have already decided that you will proceed with mediation for the numerous benefits it offers, you may be wondering what your next steps should be. There are several ways our clients prepare for their mediation sessions.

Reflect on why you want to mediate.

When you are setting out to prepare for mediation, it is important to keep in mind why you want to mediate. Perhaps mediation was your spouse’s idea, and you are not so sure about the process.

There are certain situations under California law where one spouse may be entitled to receive spousal support from the other spouse after a divorce. The point of spousal support – also referred to as alimony or spousal maintenance – is to provide income for a spouse who either does not work or was earning a much lower wage than the other spouse, such as where one spouse gave up their career to be a stay-at-home parent and raise the children.

Another purpose of alimony is to assist the lower-earning spouse in maintaining the standard of living they were accustomed to during the marriage until they are in a better financial position. In order to determine if support is warranted, the court will look at several different factors. The first factor is the gross income of the marriage. Under the California Family Code, income can include:

Wages;

Salary;

Bonuses;

Commissions;

Dividends;

Royalties; and

Trust income.

Once the income of each spouse is determined, those figures are entered into an alimony calculator. The calculator also requires input of the length of the marriage. Under the law, if a couple has been married for less than 10 years, support will not be ordered for any longer than half the amount of years the couple were married. For marriages over 10 years, the amount of time spousal support may be an extended period, if not indefinite.